Welcome to my overview of Season 5 of Xena, where I try to touch on some of the themes running through not only this season, but the entire series. (I won’t link to individual episodes, since they can be accessed in the Tag Cloud under “Xena Season 5”. This season is kind of split into two main themes; the first half deals mostly with Xena’s pregnancy and how she adjusts to it, while the second half concerns the Twilight of the Gods prophecy that’s linked to the birth of Xena’s daughter, Eve.
The first dozen episodes have Xena and Gabi coming back from the dead, learning about Xena’s pregnancy (as well as the prophecy), and finding out
that Callisto is the one who knocked Xena up with a little divine power. The pregnancy storyline was dictated by Lucy’s real-life pregnancy, but they did a good job of weaving it into the ongoing story and giving it some extra weight with the whole Twilight thing. The ironic thing is that the gods kind of end up bringing about their own destruction (or at least hastening it) because of their paranoia about the prophecy. If Zeus hadn’t tried to kill Eve, Hercules 
wouldn’t have killed him, and if the rest of the gods had just left Xena and her family alone (as Ares pointed out), they wouldn’t have been wiped out either. Another irony is that Ares saw clearly that the gods were causing their own downfall by pursuing Eve, but failed to realize that by killing Eli, he was insuring the proliferation of Eli’s beliefs and contributing to the Twilight.
The latter half of the season happens after Eve’s birth and shows how determined Xena is to keep her daughter (and Gabi) safe, even if it means defying the gods themselves. Thanks to Eve’s conversion into Eli’s
messenger, Xena gets a power-up enabling her to kill gods to protect Eve, which she does without too much remorse. The only two (of the ones we’ve seen) that survive are the two that are closest to Xena and Gabi … Ares and Aphrodite. It’s interesting to contrast the two by how they relate to Xena and Gabi. Ares and Xena are both warriors, and there’s a certain amount of respect between them, as well as affection. Ares finally admits to Xena’s face that he loves her and I think there’s definitely an attraction on her part, but hers is more visceral, 
more of a physical thing. She could never love Ares the way she does Gabrielle (and Ares basically admits he could never give Xena the kind of unconditional love that Gabi does). Aphrodite is a good match for Gabi, both of them being genuinely nice people most of the time and it’s nice to see their friendship grow throughout the season. (Some people get a romantic vibe between them, but I never really saw that.)
In previous overviews (Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4) I likened Xena and Gabi’s relationship to a teeter-totter (or the ladders in Callisto),
with the two of them attempting to find a balance and meet in the centre. I think they’ve fully achieved that by this point, so that when one of them falters and takes a step backwards (like Gabi in Seeds of Faith, or Xena in Anthony and Cleopatra), the other one can pull her back to the centre. Their romantic connection is fully 
realized finally (I speculated that they basically got married at the end of Fallen Angel), so that helps them keep their balance no matter what. Even though they may still have fundamental disagreements on philosophy (like in Seeds of Faith), or are tested in other ways (like in Kindred Spirits), they never stop loving each other and that keeps them from descending into mistrust and anger like they did during Season 3’s Rift.
The last three episodes are sort of divorced from the rest of the season because of the 25-year time jump. I think that was a good way of getting rid of baby Eve and ended up giving them a new challenge to overcome by
trying to break through Livia’s upbringing to find the person she would have been if Xena and Gabi had raised her. The three of them really are a family (as Xena mentions in Looking Death in the Eye and Motherhood), and the season ends on a great note with Xena acknowledging that Eve is Gabi’s daughter too. Of course, the last three episodes also have Joxer dying, but he goes out the way he wanted, trying to protect Gabi. It’s a better farewell than Amarice got, dying 
ignominiously off camera and between episodes; too bad they couldn’t have let her live. It would’ve been cool to see her after the 25-year jump, even if she was played by a different actress (although I can’t imagine anyone but Jennifer Sky getting the character quite right). The final three episodes also set up next season, with Xena and Gabi having to deal with not only a grown-up Eve, but with being people out of time.
So, that’s my take on Season 5. If you have anything to add (or disagree with my conclusions), let me know in the comments. Tomorrow, I’ll be doing a Timeline and Geography post for Season 5, where I try to figure out where each episode takes place, and suggest a different viewing order that might make the episodes flow a bit more logically. As always, if you’re not into dissecting the geographical and chronological minutiae of episodes, feel free to skip that post and come back next Wednesday for my first review of Season 6, which is the last season for the show.